Saying they want to draw more attention to their push for a contract guaranteeing jobs and amenities as the Obama Presidential Center is developed, dozens of South Side residents marched in Woodlawn and Hyde Park on Tuesday afternoon.

Carrying colorful signs and chanting slogans, theresidents paraded down South Stony Island Avenue across from Hyde Park Academy High School and then marched into traffic at the intersection of South 63rd and South Cornell Drive, blocking cars during rush hour. The protesters disrupted traffic for about four minutes, repeating their rallying cry as drivers honked and spilled out of their cars to investigate the commotion.

What do we want?

A CBA!

When do we want it?

Now!

“The message is simple: We want a community benefits agreement and we're not going anywhere,” said Devondrick Jeffers, an organizer with VISTA and STOP, groups that are members of the Community Benefits Agreement coalition. “Some people look at us and feel we're being opportunistic and asking for way too much. We're not asking them to change all of Chicago. We're asking them to think of the people who don't normally sit at the table, what would they like to see.”

For months, a collective of organizations has pushed for a legal contract that would ensure 80 percent of the jobs created by the presidential center would go to local residents. They want a property tax freeze to ensure the cost of housing doesn’t increase and a list of other initiatives that could help preserve the makeup of Woodlawn, South Shore and Washington Park.

Other residents have pushed back against the CBA demand — pointing out that no other major developments in the city have been held to such standards. They say that this development is the type of investment many have desired for decades and that it could dramatically change the South Side.

“I don't see a protest against the, what, 37 buildings being constructed downtown,” said Ald. Leslie Hairston, 5th. “This move is counterproductive. I'm not going to do anything that will shortchange my community. … This project is moving, so I am at the table and there are other community groups at the table, and we’re listening to the voices.”

Still, because the project is using public parkland, activists say the Obama Foundation should have to negotiate with them.

“What we want is sensible,” Jeffers said. “We want them to protect affordable housing and help us create a rental assistance program to help people with rent. We're asking that they partner with local schools. Just by altering the way one corner of Chicago is developed, this could serve as a framework for how the rest of the city develops.”

In recent months, the CBA coalition has swelled in membership. It now has the support of the powerful Chicago Teachers Union and the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois.

But while its leaders have said they want their demands put in writing, the group has not presented a draft of any legal documents detailing all that it wants. Activist leaders have said they want a city ordinance put in place that would mirror one passed during the push for the Olympics, but they have not presented their own proposal and they don’t have a sponsoring alderman.

Still, Friends of the Parks has signed on as an official ally because the group has its own concerns about the loss of park space and it wants in on a contract too.

“We are promoting the idea that any park amenities displaced should be replaced in the community,” said Juanita Irizarry, the executive director of the group. “We have heard words from the Obama Foundation that suggests in spirit they agree. But we don't think it’s appropriate to trust that these things will just get done. There are many players involved, and we think it’s appropriate to expect a higher level of accountability.”

On Tuesday afternoon, organizers of the march were joined by students from the high school and residents from the area.Some were brought to the site by bus, and they crowded in near the recreational football field that will become part of the center’s campus.

Michele Williams said she’s not against the presidential center development. But she doesn’t want it to make her Woodlawn community unaffordable.

“These people that live here do not want to be pushed out,” she said. “I’m not against the (center), I’m happy for (Obama). Come back home. … Make sure to include us who live here. … We just want our fair share and we are due it.”

During his opening prayer at the rally, Finley C. Campbell, of the Unitarian Universalist Multiracial Unity Action Caucus, emphasized his stance.

“We just want to negotiate, to talk,” he said. “We want to share ideas. You can’t tell us no from the jump street. How can we talk if you have already said, ‘No?’ ”